Criticism

The New York Times offered a link to an article that they recommended called, Government is Good, written by Douglas J. Amy. Douglas is a Professor of Politics at Mount Holyoke College and feels that the government has been given a bad rap lately. She feels that there is an unfair amount of criticism on just about everything that the government does especially from the political right. Douglas says, "Ever since Ronald Reagan declared in 1981 that 'Government is not a solution to our problem, government is the problem,' Republicans have been waging a political war against this institution. Their core message:  the free market is good and government is bad." Douglas says this is an unfair evaluation, without our government we would not have anything that resembled the current state of freedom, wealth, or prosperity that is currently the case. I agree with Douglas in that I believe the government deserves credit for so many of the positive things about this country. Douglas goes on to say "government is not the problem; it is actually the only solution to most of the pressing problems we face as a nation – including infrastructure decay, record unemployment, global warming, and a spiraling health care costs.  If we want an America that is prosperous, healthy, secure, well-educated, just, compassionate, and unpolluted, we need a strong, active, and well-funded public sector." Without a central power, we as a nation would be very inadequate when it came to addressing problems and making decisions. As an uneducated country, we would do well to not mock the government we know so little about, rather accept that nothing is perfect, we live in the wealthiest nation in the world with the most freedoms, and that our government is what caused this to happen. There may be a few bumps along the way but over all we are indebted to our government.